


Everything Happens So Much

by softporecorn



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Underage Sex, Sylvain Jose Gautier Needs A Hug, Trans Claude von Riegan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24344413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softporecorn/pseuds/softporecorn
Summary: An accidental curse is cast on the monastery, making everyone revert back to a younger version of themselves. It wouldn't be too bad, had Sylvain not aged all the way down to being six years old
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 11
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

Felix could tell something was off the moment he wakes up.

His skin doesn't seem to fit him in the way that it did when he went to bed last night. The nicks on his hands from yesterday’s training session have been wiped away. His muscles are smaller - in fact, his whole frame is smaller, pants and shirts sitting just a little long on him. His hair is shorter, hands less calloused, in general just _softer_ than he was used to being.

When he checks himself in the mirror, the gaze of his 16 year old self stares back at him.

* * *

The dining hall is a complete and utter mess when Felix gets down there. It seems he’s not the only person effected by whatever happened - everyone seems to be a bit younger, some only by a few months, some by years. A slightly younger but still recognisable Byleth is standing in a corner, chatting with who Felix had to assume were Manuela and Hanneham - although if not for their outfits he doubted he would have recognised them immediately. Manuela looked to be a similar age to him, Hanneham in his early twenties. It’s odd seeing him young and clean shaven, seeing Manuela in her slightly awkward teenage state.

He finds Ingrid, similar in age to him, and sits down next to her.

“What’s the news?”

“Some sort of magic seems to have made almost everyone younger. They’re not sure if it was some sort of attack or just an accident right now, but the knights are all on high alert. Everyone else is just sort of…wildly guessing as to what happened.”

Off in the corner, he could see Hilda, a couple of years younger, spotty with acne and awkward with limbs that she somehow didn’t seem to have grown into despite being shorter than they were usually. She was talking animatedly with the member of the Golden Deer, talking about some sort of dramatic explosion, gesticulating with her hands. Ignatz - who was seemingly unchanged - and Raphael - who was definitely less burly, though he still cut an imposing figure - watched with rapt attention, while an also unchanged Lysinthia argued.

“So, we don’t know what caused it. Strange, how we all seem to have ended up different ages.”

Most of the students seemed to have regressed to being about 16 or 17, from what he could tell, although there were a few outliers who were older or younger and a couple who appeared to have not been affected. Edelgard, who looked about 15, was talking seriously with a Hubert who Felix would say was unchanged if his hair wasn’t a good inch shorter than it had been the night before. The knights and teachers all seemed to be scattered from their late teens to early twenties, with seemingly no rhyme or reason to it.

“That’s something I’ve been wondering myself. Most people seem to be between the ages of sixteen and eighteen - maybe it’s got something to do with finishing puberty?”

Felix frowned, shaking his head.

“There’s no way that Edelgard is anywhere near finishing puberty,” he said.

Before they could dive deeper into their conversation, Hanneman spoke up, calling everyone to attention.

“As you can all see, we appear to have been affected by some form of magic. Now, it’s been a couple of hours, and we have seen no sign of trouble yet, but we cannot rule out that this was a hostile move and should be prepared for anything. I want everyone accounted for, and everyone who is old enough and fit enough to hold a weapon should keep one on hand. We cannot let our guard down.”

Felix noticed Caspar off to the side, hand wrapped up in a bandage. He couldn’t’ve been de-aged that much, since he had broken his hand in such a way that magic healing could only speed up so much only a few months ago. 

“Myself, Manuela, and some of the knights, will be heading out to the neighbouring towns to see if anyone else was affected, and to see if we can divine a cause for this. We’re sure the effects won’t be permanent, and we will figure out how to reverse them. For now, just try to remain calm, and look out for each other.”

Byleth stepped forwards. “I’m going to be remaining behind. If everyone could round up their houses, we can have a meeting in the dining hall in half an hour.”

“Have you seen Sylvain?” Ingrid whispered to him.

“No. Have you?”

She shook her head.

“He’s probably still sleeping, knowing him. Still, we should go check up on him.”

Felix grumbled - Sylvain was an adult, he could take care of himself, and if he had gone and gotten himself kidnapped Felix would kill him himself. 

When they reached the door and knocked on it, there was no reply, although Felix could hear the sound of someone moving. He knocked again.

“Sylvain! Open up! We’ve got an emergency meeting in the dining hall in half an hour!”

The door opened slowly, a small round face peering up at them with amber eyes much too big for it. Felix had to hide his shock - he had expected Sylvain to be in his late teens like the rest of them, gangly and awkward like he was a few years back before he properly grew into his body and his charm. 

The Sylvain in front of him couldn’t be more than six years old, with wide eyes and rosy cheeks, a pile of messy red hair on top. 

Still, those eyes were sharp, flicking from Ingrid’s lack of bangs to his lack of shoulders.

“So it’s not just someone getting revenge on me, huh.”

Felix shook his head, disbelieving, cuteness factor already beginning to wear off.

"Because of course, you'd just assume that.”

“Hey, people can be petty in pretty creative ways.”

Ingrid was just staring at him, before she seemed to catch herself.

“Well, this isn’t one of your messes for once. All the staff and quite a few of the students seem to have been affected.”

The practiced, charming smile Sylvain gave in response looked extremely out of place on his young face.

“Great! I love it when things aren’t my fault!”

* * *

The dining hall was even more packed by the time they got back. The fairly slight age adjustments of most of the students sat in an uncanny valley - people were just a smidgen shorter, or had different hairstyles, or they were slighter than they’d been the previous day. 

As his eyes scanned over the familiar faces, he noticed a maybe fourteen year old Claude looking at Sylvain, a concerned frown on his face. When he realised Felix had spotted him, he flashed a tight grin before saying something to Hilda, whose eyes also seemed to be unable to stop from flicking back to the tiny Sylvain. Judging by the confused look on Raphael’s face and the way Ignatz was whispering to him, whatever conversation they’d been having had been dropped upon their arrival.

_Maybe this is one of Sylvain’s fuck ups,_ Felix thought, perhaps unfairly. But it could explain why he was so much younger - maybe he was the target, but whatever spell they used effected everyone in the area. But then he shook his head - yes, Sylvain was the youngest there, but plenty of people had more years taken off them than him. It was just that he had fewer to loose.

A few more people seemed to be noticing Sylvain, to a variety of reactions.

“Holy shit, he’s so cute!”

Dorothea came sweeping over, fourteen or maybe fifteen. Sylvain had stiffened up behind Felix for a moment, before recovering quickly.

“Did you hear that, Fe? Dorothea called me cute! I might finally be in with a chance.”

The faux casual mannerisms and flirty smiles were even more disingenuous on his child’s body. Dorothea just laughed at him, ruffling his hair.

“Keep dreaming, kid.”

* * *

The meeting was a fairly simple affair - no news, no sign of attack, everyone fine apart from being younger. At the end, a small research group formed, agreeing to take residence in the library to see if they could figure out what happened and how to reverse it, while anyone still old enough would go on patrol.

If Byleth is surprised by how young Sylvain is, they don’t show it on their face.

“What I can’t figure out,” Linhardt started after the meeting had ended, “is why we are all the ages we are. Magic like this doesn’t tend to do things randomly - there’s usually an underlying logic to everything.”

“Maybe it’s something to do with our, uh, maturity levels,” an unchanged Lorenz suggested, giving Sylvain a once over. He felt small, smaller than he already did.

“I sincerely doubt that Lady Edelgard is less mature than you,” Hubert replied, eyeing him.

“Not to mention, maturity is too much of an abstract construct to be applied this broadly and with this effect. Are you trying to suggest that Caspar’s true maturity is to have a broken hand?” Linhardt asked.

Sylvain frowned, pondering. Maybe Lorenz wasn’t completely barking up the wrong tree. Maybe it was based on how they felt. There were certainly days where he gripped his lance and felt like a scared little kid who had wandered into something much bigger than himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Claude shooting Lorenz a look. It wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar sight - Lorenz had a habit of putting his foot in it more than the nobleman would ever admit.

As breakfast wraps up and people begin wandering away to their days posts, Claude approaches him.

“I’m sorry about Lorenz. To say he can be tactless would be putting it mildly.”

Sylvain shrugged, putting his hands behind his head. It wasn’t like this was new information.

“I mean, it was a fair comment. I do like to keep a childlike air of freedom around me. Lighten the place up.”

Claude winced, and Sylvain felt a stirring of anxiety in his gut.

_What does he know?_

“Potentially. I would say there is a time and a place, but some joviality in times of crisis can never go amiss. Just…perhaps not one quite so pointed at friends. Especially children.”

“Hey! I’m older than you!”

Claude laughed.

“A fact that’s easily forgotten at the best of times.”

His face morphs into something more serious.

“But seriously. If you need a hand with anything, or you just want to talk or something, don’t hesitate to find me. Always willing to lend an ear, or whatever other body part I can spare.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.”

He nodded, before scarpering off. While he was sure Claude’s offer was genuine, Sylvain was aware that there had to be some underlying motive. There was always a scheme of some sort when Claude was involved, enough tidbits of informations fed to people to keep them satisfied, smiles and flattery filling in the gaps. It was a technique Sylvain was intimately familiar with.

* * *

Sylvain ended up taking up residence in the library with Linhart, Annette and Claude, pouring over books, gently correcting Annette's calculations when she got too far off the beaten track, eternally grateful that the magic didn't seem to have dimmed his mind. Plus, between his prior tutoring of Annette and his thrashing of Claude in any game they played, he had no real reason to hide his intellect. He was actually beginning to enjoy it all when he heard Hanneham's voice through the library doors.

“It appears that a young mage in town was experimenting with an odd machine he had found. The effects seem to have been limited to the town and the monastery, thank the goddess, and we have confiscated the machine.”

“Do you want to know the fun part?” Manuela asked, voice muffled a bit by the door but still horrifically understandable. “Turn out, the dude was doing some experiment around innocence, and we’ve all reverted back to the ages we were when we lost our virginities!”

Sylvain felt the bottom of his stomach drop out as she gave a laugh that petered off too quickly. He didn't dare look at any of his classmates.

“Professor?”

Shit. Fuck. Sylvain felt sick. Felt the hands all over him, the whispers, _be a good boy, that’s it, you'll enjoy this, and when you're old enough you'll give me the gift of the crest that runs through your veins._

"I gotta--"

He couldn't even finish, seeing Annette's shocked face. Claude had just briefly closed his eyes, looking unsurprised but winded, like the words had taken all the wind out of his sails. Sylvain can't do it, can't stand the questions he sees forming in Annette's eyes, so he does what he always does when things get to hard - and runs out the library door, charging past the three teachers. He hears Manuela's shocked cry, vaguely sees Byleth stopping pursuing him, but he doesn't stop until he reaches his room.

When he gets to there he locks the door, shoving his chair up against it for good measure, before curling up over his bin and emptying his guts.


	2. Chapter 2

Claude watched the tiny Sylvain bolt from the room, feeling ill himself. Before Sylvain had even appeared at breakfast he’d had his suspicions about what was happening - or more, Hilda’s skill for gossip had lead her to realise some commonalities. It was only after Sylvain walked in, tiny compared to his two teenaged friends, that he’d started to doubt it.

Not that it didn’t make sense - and now Claude felt both guilty and enraged about how much they had all dismissed his problems as just Sylvain being Sylvain. Maybe that sort of stuff was less known about in Fodeland, but back home in Almyra they knew the signs to look for.

The door to the library opened and Byleth came in, alone. Claude could feel their eyes on him and quickly clarified.

“It was consensual. On both our parts.”

The professor took that as an answer, nodding. Claude honestly didn’t feel any shame about it - it was on the night he started taking Almyra’s well know testosterone herbs, the night he officially became a man and a prince in the eyes of the Kingdom. Of course, he argued he was a boy long before the herbs, but customs had a bad habit of sticking harder than he wanted.

He felt a chill of anger slide down his back at the thought of Sylvain’s tiny body. There was no way for someone that young to consent - they shouldn’t even know what sex was. Byleth gave him another silent look, and couldn’t help the shiver that ran up his spine.

* * *

Felix and Ingrid were in the courtyard when they heard. Word gets around fast in the monastery, and the scandal of finding out the age people were when they lost their virginities was really ripe for the picking. Felix’s first thought was gratitude that only their year had really seen Sylvain as a child. The second was disgust at himself for not being nearly as shocked and horrified by his friend’s young state. When they were twelve, he’d stayed with them and caught him making out with a local countess. Only now, as his gut sank more, did he truly put everything together, slowly clicking odd instances of Sylvain’s life as a young flirt.

“They’re not serious, are they?” Ingrid asked, looking pale. Still, Felix knew exactly what age he was, what he had been up to. 

“We need to go check on Sylvain.”

Usually, Felix would bellyache over having to check up on his womaniser friend twice in one day, but this seemed like special circumstances.

They knock on the door, loudly.

“Sylvain,” Ingrid called. “Sylvain, are you there?”

“Go away!”

“It’s just me and Felix,” Ingrid responded. “Sylvain, please let us in.”

“I don’t want you guys here. Leave me alone.”

“Sylvain—“

Ingrid was in arguing mode, and Felix raised an arm to stop her.

“He’ll come out when he comes out.”

* * *

Now they knew what they were dealing with, scouring the library’s text for reversal spells became a lot easier. Mercedes was practicing in the corner with Manuela, the two faith healers practicing incantations and readings, Byleth overlooking them.

Still, Claude was pretty limited in his usefulness - he knew a lot about potions and herbs, and he had some idea of how magic worked, but he was a bowman and magic had never really been his strongest suit.

He was finding the tomes too dense to work through when Byleth hovered over him.

“You should go get dinner. Bring some to Sylvain, too. I think you’ve done enough work on this today.”

The guilty relief rushed through him as he slammed the tome shut. His head was aching something fierce, and it was pheasant roast with berry sauce for dinner tonight, a favourite he and Sylvain shared.

He reached Sylvain’s door and rapped on it. 

“Go away, Ingrid!”

It was so definitely still Sylvain, even in the higher, squeakier voice.

“Actually it’s Claude. I just brought you dinner. I can leave it outside for you if you want?”

To his surprise, the door opened a crack.

“Is this what you meant? Earlier, when you offered to lend me an ear.”

Claude nodded.

“I didn’t want to presume - Hilda just had a hunch, it wasn’t the hardest to put two and two together.”

The boy studied him for a moment with caution that looked too mature for a boy his usual age, let alone his current one. Then, to his surprise, he opened the door, gesturing for him to come in.

* * *

Claude was awkward, not quite gangly but definitely getting closer to it, swimming in a shirt two sizes too big. He perched himself on a chair in Sylvain’s tiny room, tactfully not mentioning the smell of puke drifting from waste basket.

“She was a beautiful woman,” he offered, as if that made it any better. “a countess visiting us up on the border. I didn’t really think that much about it until now, to be honest.”

Claude was, for one of the first times in his life, lost for words. 

“I think I was surprised to see that Ingrid and Felix were so much older than me. Stung enough at that point, let alone when I realised.”

Sylvain took a bite from the roast, chewing it hard.

“I guess I sort of thought I wasn’t the only one, you know? Crested children know their responsibilities, that’s what they say. Messed up but universal, you know?”

He refused to look at Claude, focusing his gaze on the food that was rapidly filling his tiny belly. He wasn’t sure if he felt better or worse getting it off his chest, allowing someone else to know.

“It’s not like it’s the worst suffering brought onto a crested child.”

“Doesn’t have to be the worst suffering to be inexcusable.”

The queasiness was back, Claude’s quiet statement cutting through him.

“I enjoyed a lot of it, you know? When I got older I got better at picking and choosing for myself.”

Images of Ingrid and Felix, barely younger than they were today, rose unbidden in his mind. By the time he’d been both their ages, he’d successfully wooed almost all of the local minor noble ladies - not to mention the fair few from outside Gautier territory - and made quite a name for himself. Suddenly not hungry, he put the plate aside, trying to calm his churning guts.

“That’s not a regular part of having a crest, in my experience.”

Sylvain gave a dry laugh, sound odd to his ears.

“I think I got that impression.”

“Good news is, hopefully we’ll have an easier time reversing this," he said, gesturing down his own young body, "now we know what we’re dealing with.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoop update! hope this was...something lol it's like 2am sorry for any typos
> 
> also yeah claude is trans and there is nothing you can do about it

**Author's Note:**

> look, I've got a big old headcannon that Sylvain was sexually abused as a kid sorry not sorry
> 
> Also I have only done Crimson Flower and Verdant Wind which is why uh there is v little Dimitri I just haven't really played with him yet
> 
> Also also I did a half asleep edit so all typos/shitty grammar are my own lol


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